Hello, I am Jason Dunnigan and I am The Modern Dad. For all of my new and old readers I thought I’d take a minute and introduce myself.
The Early Years
Let’s just put it out there- I’m adopted. I know who knew! I actually look quite similar to both my parents but was brought to them in a nontraditional way. I am grateful for my wise birth mother who wanted to provide me a better life and feel very fortunate for the life I have had because of her decision. Of course I am not perfect- I was born jaundice and pigeon toed we’ll blame that for my love of tanning beds and expensive shoes.
I have one sister whom I admire so much as a friend and mother. We were forced to get along because we only had each other which is one reason why I’m passionate about having more than two children. I spent most of my early days building or creating things. I always had a Marble Works,Tinker Toys or K’Nex creations that I’d spend hours working on. My mom thought for sure I’d be an engineer.
I was always very talkative and social. I was the kid that was always stationed right next to the teacher so she could quickly cover up my attempts to be the classroom comedy relief. I was sent home daily with colored pieces of paper pinned to my clothes to inform my parents of the type of day I had. Silly thing- my parents only noticed the green days because somehow the yellow and red days never made it home. I’d like to thank my bus driver for having a garbage can at the exit of the bus where I could quickly drop those little slips and never let my parents know.
Once I reached junior high and high school I became a little more mischievous. In fact most people don’t believe the stories I tell them of the adventures I had growing up in Taylorsville, Utah. It is a miracle I made it to my twenties alive. I will say this though, I still consider that group of guys my best friends and enjoy sharing the crazy memories that we have together.
The Double Digits
My parents taught me to work hard and play hard. So from an early age I was given chores at home and then moved on to work outside the home like Jamba Juice, a Roller Rink, Picture People and Abercrombie & Fitch.
Don’t forget we play hard too! My family has a slight obsession with Disneyland and Hawaii. Many times we would pile in our Volkswagen Vanagon for road trips to Southern Utah, Colorado and Vegas. My parents always made sure we learned about the history of our country and our religion.
When I was 19 I was called to serve an LDS mission in the Fresno, California mission. This experience was quite humbling and changed my life forever. I wasn’t the most excited to be serving in the armpit of the United States, but I was able to meet some of the most amazing people and fell in love with the central valley.
Upon returning from my mission I was determined to become a dentist. So determined that I had my entire plan laid out and was ready to get it done. I decided that I would move to California to complete all my schooling because (at the time) Utah didn’t have any dental schools. I figured if I were to become a dentist I wouldn’t want to practice in Utah anyways since there is one on every corner. Then after late night crying sessions from Chemistry and not getting the perfect grades for dental school acceptance, I decided that dentistry wasn’t the right thing for me.
Westminster College in Utah is where I finally found my love for the communications field and finally got a bachelor’s degree in a field that fit my personality to a T.
The Third Decade
SINGLE in Salt Lake City at the age of 30 is a death sentence. In Utah there is a stigma that you have get married right when you get home from your mission (21 years old, usually), and you’re better off dead if you’re 30 and single.
I had dated girls for years. Like I would date them for 3-4 years and then realize it wasn’t working. I would be friends with these girls, and then we would start dating and at times even talk about marriage. It wasn’t until I told myself that I was ready to get serious and stop trying so hard to be that perfect guy and just be myself. That was when I met my wife.
I was introduced to my wife quickly. We met in the end of June and were married by October. I always hated the saying, “When you know you know” but that was exactly how it was. We met and it was instantly that we knew we were to be together for eternity.
Shortly after getting married we decided we better get on this family thing. We both weren’t getting any younger and wanted to have kids join us on this exciting adventure that we were taking together. Ten months after we were married our son joined our family and now, after almost three years of marriage we have welcomed our little girl. We couldn’t be happier having these little bundles of joy constantly keeping us on our toes.
As for The Modern Dad, I decided to create this blog as a place for me to put out my opinions, thoughts, ideas and everything about parenting, but from a dad’s perspective. I started the blog right after the birth of our son. As I was researching specific products I found all of the reviews came from mothers. I knew I had a voice that could change the world and was excited to start sharing it. Okay, maybe that’s a little extreme, but all the time people would ask me where I got something or why I liked it and once I told them they had to get it too.
It is also nice to have a guy’s perspective to show your husband and say, “Look honey! The Modern Dad likes it. We should like it too!” See how that works ladies? I like a lot of the same things you like, but now you have a guy’s side to show your husband and make the purchasing process a little bit easier.
So what can you expect from me now? Posts sharing my side of the parenting story, product reviews, favorite recipes from meals that I’ve made my family and much much more. I feel like I lost my blogself for a bit and just want to return to talk about the things I love as a parent, dad and husband. I started The Modern Dad to share my side and it’s coming back folks, so get ready.
